The innovation process impact on the new product performance : a case study

Purpose: In the presence of a low rate of investment in research and development in the fish industry, the Moroccan government launched in 2009 a new fisheries program which directs fish processing companies towards a non-price competitiveness strategy. These companies are driving to establish a modernized value chain that supports product innovation in its performance generation. This study therefore aims at measuring the impact of this value chain on the performance of a new product taking into account the early stages of development, namely prototyping. Design/methodology/approach: First, the authors tried to collect the data in a dichotomous qualitative form for the structure of the innovation process which reflects the measure of elapsed time for each stage of the innovation process in the two cases, namely, sequentiality and parallelism of the steps. The authors then addressed a second time to the quality managers to provide them with quantitative data. Nevertheless, the evaluation of the improvement of the innovative product had remained qualitative. Findings: The study shows that there is a positive and significant relationship between the partially parallel structure and the internal improvement objectives of the new prototype. Research limitations/implications: The main limitation of this study was the very small sample of firms operating in innovation, which did not allow us to apply a parametric analysis such as logistic or linear regression according to a normal law on a sufficient number of observations according to the transversal approach. As theoretical implications of this study, Davila et al. (2006) argue that to succeed in a product development process, it must be possible to measure the resulting performance. Assessing performance in the product development process is particularly important for managers and decision makers to address key management issues such as “what we do”, “what we have learned” and “what should we do in the future” (Tatikonda, 2007). Practical implications: The empirical implications of this study have shown that accelerating the execution of innovation activity is enormously favored to increase the performance of the innovative product over the medium term. This will enable the company to be efficient in terms of market entry time with good quality and as soon as possible mainly in the early stages of development of the new product. Originality/value: Compared with previous studies, the originality of this study is to answer two inadequacies in the theory of performance of the new product, namely, the objective/quantitative nature of the practice measured in the innovation process and the use of a holistic approach based on the performance indicators of the innovative product at each stage of the innovation process.